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Is this HP DV6t Quad fast enough ? ? ?
I wanted to edit HD videos (with Vegas 9.0 Pro) on a laptop (HDC-TM700). I’ve done some research out there and the best option without going over $2000 is this Quad Edition DV6t from HP (with these custom built options):
• Win7 (64-bit)
• 2nd gen Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2720QM (2.2 GHz, 6MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 3.3 GHz
• 2GB Radeon(TM) HD 6770M GDDR5 Graphics Card
• 8GB DDR3 System Memory (1333 or 1600Mhz i think)
• 750GB 7200RPM Hard Drive
• 9 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
• 15.6″ Full HD LED (1920 x 1080)
• Blu-ray writer & SuperMulti DVD burnerWith all the discounts, etc. i can get this setup for around $1300..
Is this laptop fast enough to edit in 1080p (30fps mainly) and have smooth previews/playbacks?
Any info/help/input is greatly appreciated.
Thank youI also looked at MainGear Ex-l 15, Dell XPS15, MSI683DXR, Alien M14x. Any opinions on those?
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8 Replies
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Editing wise, you have the necessary minimum horse-power to edit. Video card wise, it’s hard to tell. My laptop supposedly has a SVP11 supported card for GPU acceleration, BUT the latest required driver from ATI to enable GPU acceleration crashed my laptop constantly. Not Vegas, Windows 7. It’s my first ever blue screen in Windows 7 I have seen. The project would load and work for a time and then, bang, Windows 7 would have a cow.
I ended up rolling back the driver to the one that ships with Windows 7, which though it does not allow GPU support/acceleration, has restored stability and my sanity.
Your setup is probably OK to single camera edits, but will struggle with multicam.
In terms of your laptop, you might want to consider eSATA via an Xpress port (if the model supports it, I cannot tell) or an external USB 3.0 drive (which its does support).
My system specs: Intel i7 970, 12GB RAM, ASUS P6T, Vegas Pro 10e (x32/x64), Windows 7 x64 Ultimate, Vegas Production Assistant 1.0, VASST Ultimate S Pro 4.1, Neat Video Pro 2.6
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I’d suggest going with a DV7t instead. You’d get a larger LCD, but more importantly, it has a 2nd drive bay. That way you could have 2 drives, one for the OS, and one for your media.
The 9 cell big battery is a MUST, for the simple reason that it raises the laptop a tad and allows for better cooling.
Also the DV7t comes right now with a free upgrade to 8GB memory, and a Blu-Ray reader. The Blu-Ray writer is avalable for I think $75 extra, so IMHO a sweet deal.
One thing to be aware of with the AMD graphics options is that from my understanding, while running on battery, you’d only use the embedded intel graphics, while when running off external charger you’d get the full horse power. NVIDIA has something similar that they call Optimus. I do have no idea how that would affect Vegas Pro 11 and GPU rendering / video processing.
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Thank you for the replies..
I am def getting the 9-cell battery..
Also, i considered the 17″ but i need portability (17 is a brick to have on a plane), so i have to stick with the 15.6″ option.I am aware of the graphics switching, but did a little research and found out that you can upgrade the video card’s software and block it from dynamic switching (that way it’s running on it’s max all the time)..
I just dont know if the 6770M card, the 2.2Ghz quad processor, and 8gb ram will be enough to handle video editing. I owuld hate to buy a new laptop and have the playbacks lag/skipp and not be able to render a video clip in a timely manner.
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Avoid Alienware. I have had lots of experience with them in the last few years. At one time, they were very good. In recent years, support is poor to non-existent.
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Regarding the size, I cannot help you other than to recommend to check it out at a local store. It seems that the difference between the DV6t and the DV7t isn’t all that big. Also consider that you’d still have to lug the 120W power brick around, and if you are like me, probably your external drive …
Regarding the horsepower, I suspect it does have enought of it. I am using here a HP 8730w, Core2 T9600 with a FX2700M GPU. Still does it’s job for 1080@24p and 720@30p reasonably well.
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I think Alienware is still a Dell no matter how you look at it, and once having a Dell I try to steer away from it like a disease now..
I also looked at a few others (that im willing to pay more for):
MainGear eX-L15
SagerNotebook NP8150
EON 15-SHas anyone ever had any experience with these (also CyberpowerPC and IBuyPower websites)??
Again, thank you so much for helping me make this $1500-$2000 decision..
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Ok, here 2 other things you might want to look into before making the call:
(1) Is the accidental damage protection available, and for how much ?
(2) Can you download the repair manual, that tells you how disassemble the beast, and for example clean out the fan …
My wife and I have gone throu quite a few laptops over the years. Turns out that HP and Toshiba have always been the best choices in the higher end segment. I have been burned by a lot of brands that I’d rather not mention.
Now if you are going to the $1500 to $2000 segment, I’d recommend to you to also take a look at the HP 8560w.
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So in the end i bought the mentioned above HP laptop..
It performs nicely!
I run a 64-bit version of Sony Vegas Pro 9 on a 64-bit Win7.. and besides being able to edit without any performance problems, i can actually click the right arrow and fast run across my project timeline without any lagging, skipping, or freezing up. And that’s a pretty good measure of performance for me (fast forwarding clips, etc).
Thanks everyone for the input.
Luke
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